


and make it seem effortless

by daisysusan



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Multi, Polyamory, Romance, Slice of Life, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-07
Updated: 2012-05-07
Packaged: 2017-11-04 23:24:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisysusan/pseuds/daisysusan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a surprisingly comfortable relationship that develops between them</p>
            </blockquote>





	and make it seem effortless

**Author's Note:**

> Minor spoilers for the film and for character dynamics, but nothing too huge.

It simultaneously comes out of nowhere and feels like the most natural thing in the world. 

Bruce starts coming by, once there are labs again, ones even more cutting-edge and full of shiny toys than they were before—mostly because Tony is an incorrigible nag, once he gets an idea into his head. (It’s not like he and Pepper have nothing in common, after all.) He’s reluctant at first—Tony calls it unwillingness to accept all of himself, but Pepper suspects that he’s just shy. For someone who can turn, pretty much at will, into a terrifying and uncontrollable monster, he’s surprisingly meticulous in his politeness and caution. 

Regardless, he does eventually start coming over, probably lured by the promise of floors and floors of labs and the opportunity to research again. 

He’s in the building often enough—and late enough into the night—that Pepper starts inviting him to dinner (at least on the nights where she and Tony actually sit down in the same place at the same time, which are infrequent enough). The first couple of times, it’s well-ingrained good manners coupled with a hunch that, otherwise, he won’t eat dinner at all. He lets her call him Dr. Banner exactly once before he insists on being Bruce, and Pepper’s instantly a little charmed.

It’s nice, though, having him around. He and Tony get along well—and lord knows Tony needs a friend who can keep up with him intellectually that he didn’t create for himself out of code—but he’s also just a smart, kind, genuinely interesting person whose company Pepper enjoys. 

She’s not sure how it goes from the three of them watching movies one or twice a month to—whatever it is now, but obviously it does. 

 

\--

 

Bruce is reluctant to take sides at first, when Pepper frowns and her reprimands feel less like quips and more like snaps, because it’s all strange and undefined and he’s not sure where he belongs or if he belongs at all, but then one night it’s entirely too much to handle. 

And for someone whose defining personality trait is control, that’s saying something.

Pepper’s trying to explain to an especially rambunctious Tony why he can’t do something that, honestly, Bruce doesn’t perfectly understand; Tony was rambling about it this afternoon but he was distracted by his own work. It seems like Pepper got the Cliff’s Notes from someone, probably Jarvis, and has realized that there’s about a 65% chance it’ll burn the entire tower down, though, so her position is pretty reasonable. 

After about fifteen minutes of Tony arguing about the advancement of technology and how he needs to keep developing new ideas while Pepper talks about acceptable risks and loss of investments and the fact that she’s really quite fond of Tony being alive, Bruce finally butts in. 

They eventually convince him to find a way less likely to turn them all to ash before he attempts that particular technological advance, and while Bruce is definitely glad that Tony’s not doing anything suicidal and also that he won’t be dying, both of those things pale in comparison with the look of gratitude on Pepper’s face when Tony grins at them and points out that he’ll just need something else to do with his evening, then. It occurs to him then for the first time that neither of them is used to having someone else to turn to—it’s not quite Tony and Pepper against the world, but maybe it’s been something like that. 

He certainly understands the feeling of not having many people (or anyone at all, for that matter) that he can rely on, and tries to convey that when he smiles back at Pepper, giving her one subtle nod. 

 

\--

 

On the days that Tony accidentally sleeps until noon—more frequently now than when he first got back from, well, you know, but less often than he did in college—it’s not unusual for him to stumbled, still bleary-eyed, into the living room and find Bruce and Pepper together. Sometimes they’re talking quietly, but as often as not, they’re just sitting in silence, reading or working. 

He doesn’t know what they talk about, because contrary to popular belief he does have some manners. It’s just that most people aren’t important enough to bother hauling them out, rusty and unreliable.

After all, he’s always had Pepper to be his manners. 

It’s nice to watch them for a few minutes—or moments, depending—before they notice he’s there; he’s been able to see the progression of their mornings. At first, they would each curl at opposite ends of the sofa with the newspaper (guaranteed mocking as soon as Tony woke up) or tablets, but slowly they inched toward each other until one morning, Pepper’s legs are draped over Bruce’s lap and his hand is curled around her ankle. 

She’s talking, too soft for Tony to really understand, but he can read her expressions and gestures; he knows this story well, after all. She’s telling Bruce how they met. For all that Pepper’s gestures are comfortingly familiar, he finds himself watching Bruce’s reactions. 

After a couple of minutes, just enough time to Pepper to get past the interesting part, Tony shakes his body to a level of awakeness where he can move, and heads across the room to squeeze onto the couch, enjoying the surprised looks he gets. 

 

\--

 

For all that Bruce is usually a voice of reason, it’s still Pepper’s job to pry him and Tony out of the lab more nights than it isn’t. They have good intentions—okay, Bruce has good intentions, Tony would never stop tinkering if he thought he could get away with it—but they get caught up in their work and don’t notice the time, and they egg each other on, and they end up neck-deep in a competition that Pepper doesn’t think she’ll ever really understand. On the nights like that, she goes to get them, because Jarvis is no use when they’re testing each other’s limits more than the limits of science. 

Sometimes, when she finds them, they’re yelling at each other, words and concepts she’s never had the time to learn in that much detail; other times, they’re standing too close over a screen or a robot or something else entirely, Tony’s hand in Bruce’s back pocket or Bruce’s arm around Tony’s waist. Regardless, they always jump a little when they realize she’s there and it feels a little like an unwelcome intrusion—because it kind of is—but they do come and eat, even if the conversation doesn’t always stop.

(And Tony usually complains—this is where having another sane person around comes in handy.)

Even if the intrusion is unwelcome, even if she’s an interloper in their experiments, the feeling never lasts; by the time Jarvis has locked the doors behind them, Bruce’s arm will be curled loose around her waist or Tony’s across her shoulders like they’re in high school and she’s the quarterback’s girlfriend. 

 

\--

 

Most of it’s comfortable by now, sharing his space and time with people—something he had to readapt to after so much isolation—but there are parts that Bruce doesn’t ever think he’ll get used to. 

Namely, the part where Tony pins him against the wall to kiss him or Pepper crawls to straddle him on the sofa so that she can rock her hips against his. 

And especially not the part where he’s squeezed between them, two pairs of hands—one callused and the other soft but still confident—trailing over his skin, maddening and comforting all at the same time. It’s been so long since anyone tried to make him lose control in a way that didn’t make him homicidal that he’s almost forgotten that the sensation exists. 

But now Pepper’s kissing him, gentle but thorough, and Tony’s hands are trailing abstract shapes against his back. Bruce catches himself trying to control his breathing, habit ingrained from too many near-misses, before he remembers that he’s not angry, not stressed, unlikely to become angry or stressed in the immediate future. It’s like a panic attack, he tells himself, he has to not mistake similar symptoms for something that could cause an—an episode. He can’t take a deep breath, not with Pepper’s mouth pressed to his, but he can run a hand up through her hair and fight the urge to tense when Tony’s fingers press against his ass. 

It’s all kind of a haze, but this isn’t the first time and he’s been fine through the others and—incredibly—Pepper and Tony don’t seem all that concerned about it. He’s not used to this yet, and the idea of it becoming something normal is difficult to wrap his head around, but maybe it will be. 

 

\--

 

Bruce takes more risks, now—Tony’s noticed. Not a lot (not yet) and nothing too big, but he’s a little bit more relaxed. Less twitchy, anyway. 

Tony’s the reckless one of the three of them, always has been and always will be. It’s why having Pepper around has been so important; he needs a voice of reason, someone to keep him grounded and remind him that some risks aren’t worth it. Pepper’s better at it than anyone else has ever been—Rhodey tries but doesn’t hold his ground well enough and, honestly, Tony doesn’t respect most people enough to care when they try to tell him what to do. 

From the very beginning, from her first day, Pepper’s understood that it’s a finesse job; orders won’t do any good, but teasing and cajoling and occasionally emotional manipulation will protect him from the worst of his own impulses. 

Bruce, though—Bruce is something else. He has a lid on everything, sometimes so tightly affixed it feels like he’s got one smashed down hard on all his emotions. It makes sense—cattle prod aside, Tony does understand that Bruce can’t let his emotions run away with him and he appreciates it—but he can’t help wanting to see him take a couple of risks. 

They’ve talked about it, him and Pepper, how to ease Bruce out of his shell so that he doesn’t wring his hands and retire to the lab whenever someone suggests something that doesn’t allow for complete control. Tony finds himself wondering what he was like before the accident; he can’t have been this reticent, though, or he wouldn’t have been playing with radiation at all. 

He’s getting better—yesterday, some mix of something he was doing in the lab went a little wrong and kind of, well, exploded, and the two of them jumped wildly away from the explosion, ended in a messy heap behind a table and laughing. They were still collapsed on each other—not giggling because they’re grown men and grown men don’t giggle—when Pepper rushed in, looking concerned. 

It was all okay, since she ended up laughing with them, her head buried in Bruce’s shoulder.


End file.
